


Wish You Were Here

by uwhatson



Series: Four Season Challenge [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uwhatson/pseuds/uwhatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"autumn is the hardest season. the leaves are all falling, and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground."</i>
</p><p>During a November walk through the woods, Derek gives Stiles a call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies that this installment is more on the sad side. I'm trying to have each part capture the season in an emotional sense, not just in setting, and while I love autumn, it also tends to make me rather melancholy. The next one will be happier (and also have more kissing).
> 
> Title and quote from "Photograph" by Andrea Gibson.

The woods feel empty—not only because no one else is in them, but because all the leaves are lying thick on the ground after last night’s storm, the trees bare and the ground rustling beneath his feet. It’s an emptiness Derek’s been noticing more often these days, but he pushes it to the back of his mind, keeps walking along the path, and presses 2 on speed dial. He doesn’t even have to wait past the second ring before Stiles picks up, with a certain breathless quality that suggests he’s had a bit too much Adderall today. 

“Hey! Hi! What’s up?”

Derek frowns. “Did you just say hello to me three different ways?”

Stiles sighs, and Derek can practically hear him rolling his eyes. “It’s a very clever TV reference that you won’t get, so you should probably just let it go. But anyway—how’s it going?”

“Fine,” Derek says, and shoves his free hand into his jacket pocket. “I dunno. Quiet?”

“Good quiet or bad quiet?” Stiles replies, and he never quite sounds like himself on the phone like he does in real life, the harmonics just slightly wrong.

“What’s bad quiet?” Derek says.

“Like, whenever people in movies are all,” and Stiles adopts his dramatic movie voice to say, “It’s quiet… _too quiet_.” Derek is pretty sure he hears something crash off Stiles’ desk, but Stiles doesn’t seem to notice, just continues with, “And then you know somebody’s about to get impaled on something. So yeah, that’s bad quiet.”

Derek almost laughs, but doesn’t, looking down at his feet as the trail turns steep and uneven. “No, it’s—it’s definitely not bad quiet.”

“So it’s good quiet?” Stiles prompts, and Derek can tell Stiles has stopped moving on the other end, waiting for his reply.

“… yeah. Yeah. It’s—yeah. Um, do you have homework or something you should be doing? I mean—am I interrupting you from something, or—”

“What? No, no—I mean, yeah, I have a lot of homework, but whatever, I always have a lot of homework, especially since Dr. Cohen is such an _asshole_ —oh man, I need to tell you about class today, like, talk about a shitshow, but wait—wait. You sound weird. Are you outside right now?”

Derek takes another deep breath as he nears the top of the hill he’s been working up. “… yes?”

“Dude, isn’t it kind of cold out?”

“I _am_ wearing a jacket, you know. Someone gave me one for my birthday, after all.”

“Oh, well, _fine_ ,” Stiles says, and Derek can hear him smiling, can almost see it in his head. The afternoon’s light is thin—diluted—and the dead leaves underfoot are past the point of having color.

Derek adds, “And also I’m a werewolf, so—”

“Right, well, just because you don’t get sick doesn’t mean you’re immune to freezing cold temperatures. I am indoors and wearing three layers and a blanket, and _I’m_ in the balmy Pacific Northwest. Unless Beacon Hills is having some kind of November heat wave—”

“Stiles, what are you even—no, it’s cold here, just—I needed—I mean, I _wanted_ … to get out of the house.” Derek swallows. He’s found an alligator paper clip in his pocket—why is that even in there?—and the metal’s warm as he flips the tiny arms open and closed with his fingers.

After a moment, Stiles says, “Nothing good on TV, huh?”

“You could say that,” Derek says, and he’s stopped moving now, stopped fiddling with the alligator clip—just standing on the empty trail in the silent woods and listening to the almost unnoticeable static that promises Stiles is there on the other side of the connection.

“Hey,” Stiles says finally, and it’s soft in Derek’s ear as he holds up his phone with freezing fingers. “I miss you. Y’know, like—a lot.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, and blinks a couple times, staring at the bare trees but not seeing them, not really. “Yeah, I know, me—me too.”

“If I could come home for Thanksgiving,” Stiles continues, “I would. Same for Christmas.”

Derek lifts his gaze from the trees to the sky and blinks, but it’s just gray fog looking back. “Remind me again, why the hell did you get a retail job?”

Stiles sighs with clear exasperation. “Because no one else was hiring, so definitely _not by choice_. Quentin’s already trying to scare me with Black Friday horror stories, ugh, I’m feeling sick just thinking about it.” There’s another pause, and then Stiles says, “And you can’t just come up here? I’ll leave the window unlocked, you can climb in through it like a creeper, it’ll be just like old times—except my roommate will probably mace you in the face. He’s always been kind of high strung, though—try not to take it personally.”

Despite the tightness in his chest, Derek can feel himself smiling. “I guess I would hate to miss that experience.”

“I mean, just buy him Thai food and he’ll forgive you anything. This is something valuable I have learned, despite the fact that I am of course the best roommate ever, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“Mmmm,” Derek says, eyebrow raised.

“You don’t sound convinced. Why don’t you sound convinced? Some boyfriend you are, Jesus. You’re lucky I don’t dump you for some hot TA.”

“I thought your classes didn’t have TAs. The perks of a liberal arts college and all.”

“Yeah, well, a hot… writing advisor, then. Or tutor. I have, like, forty to choose from, I’m pretty sure _one_ of them has to be at least kind of attractive.”

Derek grins. “You attempting to seduce your tutor? I could probably drive up for that. Definitely bring popcorn with me.”

“You’re the worst. The freaking worst.” Stiles sighs dramatically, and then says, “You’re sure you can’t come up?”

“I don’t—I don’t know. Peter’s been acting weird—well, weirder than usual—so I can’t really leave him in charge. There’ve been some problems with omegas down south, and it sounds like they’re moving our direction, so—”

“You can’t come, I get it, it’s fine,” Stiles says, and Derek can hear the frustration under the light tone, can imagine Stiles rubbing a hand viciously through his hair in exasperation—Adderall energy with no outlet.

“I’m sorry,” Derek says, and wishes he had something better to say. “I’m sorry, I wish I could. Maybe in December, but—”

“No, I know, it’s fine, I’m sorry, just—today hasn’t been the greatest, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Derek smiles a smile that isn’t really a smile, and starts walking again along the leaf-covered path. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Your chem professor, right?”

“Oh god, I hate him— _I hate him so much_. He made us switch lab partners today for no fricking reason, and not only did we have to change, but he made it _random_ , so guess who I got paired up with?”

“Uhhhh—”

“Thomas Larkin!”

“Oh, uh… is he the guy who falls asleep in lecture?”

“Yes! And now he is also my lab partner! Goodbye, my carefully cultivated A grade! You were beautiful while we lasted, but obviously it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Derek smiles, a real smile this time, and does his best to reassure Stiles that he’ll still be able to keep his grade intact, so long as he makes sure Thomas doesn’t do anything completely disastrous during lab. By the time Derek reaches the fork in the path that’ll either take him back home or further north into the woods, Stiles is reading out some of his classmates’ more ridiculous poems from his mandatory freshman writing seminar.

Just as Stiles is trying not to break over the third mention of tears running down someone’s face, Derek stops at the precise intersection of the branching paths and says, “Stiles?”

Stiles’ laughter dies away, and a second later he says, “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

And Stiles says, a quiet voice from the hard plastic phone pressed against Derek’s ear, “Yeah, I. I love you too.”


End file.
